Brand was convicted by a jury last week for one rape and three sexual assaults committed against four women between 2004 and 2009. Brand was cleared of two other alleged rapes and one count of attempted indecent assault. He was sentenced on Monday.

The entertainer’s legal team can file for permission to appeal against the sentence or the conviction within 28 days. He will need to serve at least two-thirds of his sentence to be eligible for parole.

In a public statement on X, Goldsmith claimed she had her own “personal experience of his violence, coercive control and abuse”, including a violent incident in 2014 which led her to call the police to have Brand removed from her house.

She claimed she had refrained from filing charges against the comedian at the time, fearing the press attention it would bring to her and its negative impact on her children.

“Whilst my pain in relation to this pales in comparison to what the women [who] have testified in court have suffered, this was a difficult period in my life which has had a lasting impact,” Goldsmith continued.

“Over several years,” the producer said, “I assisted the journalists who finally exposed him … I also undertook to testify in court to his abusiveness, if the newspaper that published the victims’ accounts were ever to be sued.”

Goldsmith made clear that she is and has always been “strongly and unequivocally on the side of all of Brand’s victims”.

“I am in awe of the courageous women who came forward at Brand’s trial, told their stories, testified and ensured justice was done,” she said.

She added that she had not been in contact with Brand since 2014. “I am glad and relieved that Russell Brand has finally faced justice,” Goldsmith said.

The Sunday Times chief news correspondent, Rosamund Urwin, who was part of a 2023 media probe into Brand said that Goldsmith had helped her “a lot” during the investigation, according to a BBC report.

“I have seen the abuse she’s been getting online and I did try to tell people that part of the story was much more complicated than they realise,” Urwin told the BBC.

“I wish people would remember women that come forward are brave people and that is what she has done tonight – she has spoken out with immense bravery about how Russell Brand treated her,” she added.

The problems are everywhere yet nowhere in the rural, sand-encrusted fishing village where Rabia (Nazualiya Arsalan) lives. The surroundings stir quite a lot of questions in the mind of the 10-year-old contemplative girl whose school closed down without notice. Rumours of djinn taking over people and institutions spread with nonchalant normalcy, as if it’s an everyday occurrence. Nobody notices the apparentness of it all.

Oddly, Gul chooses to keep the various characters and family members nameless, addressed by Rabia only by their adopted professions or by their relationship to her.

The girls in her village are intelligent and docile, and the boys are easily incitable dumb barbarians (one was expecting this).

Writer-director-producer Seemab Gul’s Ghost School takes on an important issue but is a very long, tiring one-dimensional message board

The school teacher (Muhammad Zamaan) is nowhere to be found. When she tracks him down, the teacher and his wife are all but ready to leave for the city as small-town politics have become too much for the couple.

The school principal (Adnan Shah Tipu) — whom she also eventually tracks down — lives at the other end of the spectrum. He believes education to be a privilege for the rich. For him, Rabia, the daughter of a fisherman and a housemaid (played by Samina Seher), shouldn’t worry about learning. After all, he says, what would landlords do if all fishermen and farmers educated themselves and left for a better life?

Rabia leaves the principal’s house, sees an old well and screams like an adult who has had enough — not a child who wants to hear her echo. It’s a strange disconnect, but the realisation for the viewer is far from alarming. Rabia, for the most part, is an angry representation of the outside world, silently scowling at the injustices of politicians, bureaucrats and officers alike.

So, for most of Ghost School, Rabia walks, and walks, and walks, and walks (yes, there is a lot of walking), seeking answers that are everywhere for the audience to see. She notices half-completed buildings abandoned along the way — a hospital, a college, a school — left incomplete because state funds were looted. Schools that get state funding but hire no teachers are deemed “Ghost Schools” by institutions of developed countries, as Rabia, and the audience are told.

She meets a vegetable vendor (Kehan Naqvi) who is happy to have left school when he reached the fifth standard, and a blind old man (Tutu Baba) sitting in the shade, who goes gung-ho against politicians. At his barbershop, her uncle (Taha Khan), a sensible, educated young man, tells her not to prod and to return home with the local tonga driver (Vajdaan Shah) and his white steed Burraq. Rabia, instead, pays him to drop her at the district commissioner’s office.

At one point, Gul makes an appearance as the girl’s saviour. She gives Rabia a ride home in her car and offers her an education in Karachi. In exchange, the little girl has to take care of her house chores.

Everyone Rabia encounters speaks perfect Urdu, using words that spring right out of classic literature from my grand-dad’s youth; not one of them has a hint of Sindhi in their dialects. Every actor ‘acts’ as if they aren’t yet attuned to the subtleties of film acting, and delivers stilted dialogues with the aghastness of a first-world resident. The entire exercise makes Ghost School a very long, very tiring, decidedly vocal, one-dimensional message board, littered with sticky notes about how old-fangled and suffocating Pakistan really is.

For good measure, the film is shot with the arty and serious 3:2 squarish aspect ratio by Afghan-German cinematographer Zamarin Wahdat, accentuating the boxed-in lives these characters live.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am all for stories that have pluck, purpose and message, with the guts to stand against institutions, with due reason. The filmmaker took the Sindh censor board to court and won — and one can see why they had issues with the film. Notwithstanding the gutsiness, I am also a supporter of subtlety, impartiality, panache and pacing, especially when it comes to spinning narratives (panache and pacing are important on the technical front to keep the film engaging).

Here, the message lingers inelegantly, full of one-sided hubris, as if no other interpretation or viewpoint exists in this world. That conviction is wrapped around a brick that’s flung directly at the audience. And it smarts.

The last two films that hurled a brick like this were The Window by Kanza Zia and Ammar Lasani, and years ago, Iram Parveen Bilal’s Josh: Against the Grain. Both films found international applause at film festivals, but little audience in Pakistan. However, Parveen Bilal’s film had better dialogue delivery and less stilted performances.

In Gul’s film, despite the trained, theatrical performances of her cast — who often act on cue — the real gem is Nazualiya Arsalan. The little girl is a find whose naturalness somewhat eases the insistent nature of Ghost School.

Gul’s film carries an idea worth exploring — that, according to the Asian Human Rights Commission, the country has 30,000 ghost schools that deprive 22.4 million students of education. However, her script needs to go back to the drawing board, irrespective of international partnerships or grants.

Originally published in Dawn, ICON, November 8th, 2026

Harrison, 81, became the oldest winner of the award, which comes with a £50,000 ($67,000) prize and a boost in sales and profile for the winner.

A veteran of the British science fiction literary scene, it was Harrison’s first time being shortlisted for the coveted prize, which critics have said was long overdue.

He beat shortlisted authors Marlon James, Douglas Stuart, Elizabeth Strout, Luke Kennard and Rebecca Perry, whose entries ranged from a queer epic unfolding in 1980s Kingston to a campus satire set in modern-day London.

The End of Everything came out “ahead in terms of both its extraordinary expert writing, but also huge ambition,” chair of the judges Mary Beard told a press conference.

Harrison’s 13th novel follows the beachcomber Phillip Tennent and his dementia-stricken, free-spirited aunt Marnie, set in the near-future on the windswept English coast invaded by mysterious objects known as the iGhetti.

An unnamed catastrophe plunges the characters into a murky post-apocalyptic world where the European continent seems to have disappeared and the arrival of the iGhetti, which can imitate humans, evoke interactions with artificial intelligence.

“One main point of the book is that if, or when, such an apocalypse comes it will be incomprehensible,” Beard said, adding the book spoke to the present “moment”.

“This is the politics of now seen through the lens of the future,” Beard said in a statement.

In dream-like episodes, this tight, 198-page novel alludes to Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the invasion of technology into daily life.

As is often the case with Harrison’s writing, which has been described as genre-bending and singular, the plot counts less than the atmosphere, and the author’s elliptical and poetic style heightens the feeling of gradual collapse.

AI concerns

“Current affairs provided the themes and the satire,” Harrison said of his book. “What happens when all of our expectations and explanations of the world become an ongoing disaster, but we still have to make a life?”

The author previously said he was inspired by the 2008 financial crisis, and wanted to write a novel about the “failure of explanation in society”.

Born in Rugby, England, in 1945, Harrison is the author of numerous science fiction books, including the Viriconium saga (1971-1984) and Light (2002), the first volume of a trilogy known as The Kefahuchi Tract, renowned as major works of the genre.

Little known to the general public beyond circles of science fiction enthusiasts, when he was shortlisted, The Telegraph newspaper wrote: “Finally, he’s getting his due.”

The theme of artificial intelligence has been on the judges’ minds through the year-long selection process, which saw them whittle down 163 entries to a shortlist of six novels.

Beard pointed out concerns surrounding AI were “pretty high on this book”.

“Phillip has got this object, this artefact, and it’s not clear how sentient it is. It’s not clear what it is,” Beard said in a press conference to announce the winner.

In an earlier interview with AFP, Beard said the prize-awarding panel would have to think about the role of AI in publishing and writing in the coming years.

“I think for the future it’s inevitable that that will be on the agenda. You can’t bury your head in the sand about that,” she said.

The other judges have talked about wanting to create a shortlist of books that were distinctly human and could not be replicated by AI.

The prize, which celebrates the best work of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the last year, was awarded on Monday at a London ceremony.

Last year, British-Hungarian author David Szalay won the prize for Flesh, his tortured tale of a Hungarian emigre in London.

A scene where the female lead Zaryab Habib (Durefishan Saleem) refuses to wear a sleeveless dress, saying she’s no longer comfortable wearing such clothes, has sparked a fair amount of discourse on social media and even Saleem has jumped in.

In an Instagram post on Sunday, the actor explained that the point of the scene was to show Zaryab’s own relationship with faith changing, and she should have the freedom to go through that change.

Saleem said she considered faith to be an internal transformation which manifests in external actions — including how someone chooses to dress themselves.

A woman’s right to choose how she dresses must be extended to all women in various clothing styles, the actor pointed out.

The real issue, Saleem said, is not what Zaryab chooses to wear; it was how people “begin questioning, scrutinising or judging her choices instead of simply respecting them”.

Dar-e-Nijaat, she said, was Zaryab’s story: “her imperfections, her flaws, her contradictions as a woman”. The actor said the audience was entitled to their opinion on it.

She did, however, question the need to blow a narrative choice out of proportion and make it a national emergency. “Not every character arc needs a panel discussion, a jury and a final verdict from the internet.”

“You don’t have to agree with Zaryab, you don’t have to relate to her, and you certainly don’t have to make her journey your own… Sometimes, it is simply someone else’s story.”

Unlike her character, she said, she was okay with wearing clothing without sleeves and had been for some time. “That’s my personal relationship with modesty and someone else’s may look very different to it,” Saleem said.

Her faith did not grant her the right to judge others, she said, nor did it give others the right to judge her. What she chooses to wear, be comfortable with and change about herself is her own business, she reiterated.

In a reel posted to her Instagram account on Saturday, the actor said she was thankful to her fans for all the love they’d given her character Hamna and as a reward, she was going to give them all the tea on what’s going to happen on the show.

The female lead, Zaryab (played by Durefishan Saleem), she claimed, will move to Turkey towards the end of the show, where she’ll meet — and you guys are not going to believe this — the historic Turkish leader Ertugrul, who is a cousin of her ex-boyfriend Zamil (Nameer Khan); therefore, Ertugrul would technically be Hamna’s brother-in-law, since she ends up married to Zamil.

The whole thing makes Zaryab’s husband, Abu Bakar (Sheheryar Munawar), very upset and he becomes a motivational speaker, conducting a seminar titled ‘Lets Move On’ as a way to move on from his lost love. There, in the front row, he finds the last person anyone would expect to see there: Zamil — cue audible gasps.

And if you’re wondering what more could happen in this fever-dream of a TV show, Zamil tells Abu Bakar that his mother Khushbakht (Sania Saeed) is also Zamil’s mother, which makes them step-brothers?

Now, while Khan doesn’t say whether Abu Bakar reacts to this by yelling out “No! That’s not true! That’s impossible,” she does reveal what her own character does out of frustration with this relationship hodgepodge: she moves to Dubai and starts working in real estate.

Okay, Khan was obviously kidding and none of that happened. She asked fans if they thought she was crazy enough to give them the actual story and lose her job — which is actually a good question for all of you who read this far.

She told people to watch the show for themselves to find out what actually happens.

The ‘Thrift ​Shop’ performer launched the effort after he was removed as the opening ​act on musician Ed Sheeran’s concert tour in August. Macklemore said ⁠at the time that stadium owners had objected to him saying “Free Palestine” on ​stage.

Since then, nine US venues declined to allow him to book available dates through ​the end of the year, Macklemore said on social media. The venues included Madison Square Garden and the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.

“The shows were not going to be allowed to happen ​in these venues,” he said in a post. “In over 20 years of touring, I’ve ​never experienced anything like this.”

A spokesperson for MSG Entertainment, which operates Madison Square Garden and other venues, ⁠said its properties are among “the busiest venues in the world with extremely limited availability” and that Macklemore is “not an arena-level act.”

Representatives for the Kia Forum did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Macklemore played Free Palestine shows in Dublin, Paris and London to ​raise funds for ​organisations that support ⁠the Palestinian people. The musician said he would work with other artists and organisers to do more performances for the cause.

“We ​live in a country that prides itself on freedom of speech,” ​he wrote. “Yet ⁠we’ve reached a point where a handful of billionaires can decide which causes are acceptable, which voices are welcome and which human lives are worth defending.”

Palestinian authorities say ⁠more than ​74,000 people have been killed in Israel’s assault on ​Gaza.

Prose’s debut was followed by The Mystery Guest (2023), and The Maid’s Secret (2025) completes the trilogy. (Incidentally, The Mistletoe Mystery, a novella featuring Molly, was also published in 2024.)

While each novel can be read as a standalone work, readers will be drawn to read all three because Molly’s character and the backstory of her beloved grandmother, Flora Gray, steal the show throughout. Although the first two novels were ostensibly murder mysteries, a large portion of each was committed to underscoring Flora’s story, who basically trained Molly in the arts of housekeeping and housecleaning.

The Maid’s Secret does not contain a murder per se. However, it focuses on a piece of art which Molly inherited from her grandmother, and which she firmly believes is a good imitation of a Fabergé egg. The originals were trinkets (egg-shaped objects made of precious metals and gems) designed by the House of Fabergé, which acquired great value over time, especially due to the patronage of Russian tsars who often presented them to their wives and loved ones.

The third part of a trilogy revisits the main protagonist hotel maid and her beloved late grandmother who trained her, and adds in an inherited multi-million-dollar Fabergé egg

Excitement builds at the RGH when a pair of very prestigious auctioneers, Thomas Beagle and Baxley Brown, decide to appraise various objects belonging to the hotel staff for an entertaining TV show. Much to the surprise of Molly and her fiancé Juan Manuel (a Mexican-born immigrant who works at the RGH as a pastry chef), they assess that Molly’s trinket is a genuine Fabergé egg, which can potentially be sold for several million dollars.

Molly is overcome with apprehension, but everyone else, ranging from auction groupies to the hotel’s staff, is wildly excited. The hotel manager, Mr Snow, immediately places the egg in the hotel’s office safe, and the doorman, Mr Preston, is particularly thrilled because he loved Molly’s grandmother in their youth and appreciates the fact that Molly will now be able to live a rags-to-riches story.

Ironically, the only one who is less than thrilled is Molly herself, since the televised aspect of the find leaves her with no privacy whatsoever. A truly virtuous and humble young woman, Molly has no desire to be catapulted into the fame of becoming a millionairess. However, Brown and Beagle rightly claim that the find is too major to be ignored, since the egg appears to be the major prototype of several others that were created after it.

Interspersed with the action of Molly’s story, the reader is made privy to the egg’s provenance, which is inextricably linked to Flora’s story. Flora was born and raised in a highly privileged milieu in the earlier half of the 1900s. Intelligent and sensitive, she eventually rebelled against her snobbish parents’ desire to force her into marrying a consummate rake, Algernon Braun.

It turns out that the egg (which ends up being gifted to Flora) was stolen by the Braun family from a noble, rich baron who was a major art collector. Molly only discovers all this by reading her grandmother’s diary during the latter portion of the novel. The reader will find the connections between Beagle, Brown, Braun, and Barons entertaining, albeit somewhat predictable.

Over the course of the novel, the egg gets dramatically stolen during the auction that is set up for it. Much to everyone’s surprise, however, it gets returned to Molly. In a startling plot twist, the thief places it in Molly’s RGH housekeeping trolley, amidst a mound of toilet paper! Given that the auction valued the egg at close to $10 million, this plot twist comes across as highly amusing.

Molly eventually figures out who the thief is and why he took such pains to first steal the egg and then put it back in her belongings. While the mystery is enjoyable, and its solution quite satisfying, only about half the space of the novel is devoted to it — the rest of the novel consists primarily of Flora’s story.

Nita Prose never really manages to make Flora Gray emerge as an authentic character, possibly because too much of her tale involves recounting a plot which tends to become tedious on occasion. Molly comes across as a far more interesting character because one can sympathise with her, thereby experiencing her feelings and sentiments, rather than having them placed mundanely before one in the form of a slightly dull, saccharine diary.

Moreover, the portion of the mystery that focuses on Molly’s friends and acquaintances does tremendous justice to minor characters. Cheryl, a supremely lazy maid, is as well-sketched as a young man named Speedy, whom Mr Preston is training to take over as the hotel’s doorman. Speedy’s speech contains some hilarious malapropisms; for instance, when asked to be discreet, he quips, “Excretion is my middle name!”

Little details, such as the point that Juan Manuel takes great pride in making beautiful animal figures out of marzipan (which he calls “marzipanimals”) make the Molly-segment of the book far more engrossing than the section devoted to her grandmother’s youth.

It is evident that Nita Prose enjoys placing her heroine in predicaments which require Molly to use her own intelligence actively and assiduously. Molly does not disappoint; she approaches every mystery she encounters as if it were a particularly difficult piece of furniture that requires cleaning and polishing.

Naturally, a fair bit of the novel requires a suspension of disbelief — one can understand why Flora eventually found Algernon to be repulsive, but the manner in which she flees from her snooty parents is undeniably far-fetched. Be that as it may, Molly’s relationship with Juan Manuel is based on real love and, although the Fabergé egg ends up causing her no end of trouble, her fiancé admirably sticks by her through thick and thin.

This may be why one simply smiles rather than groans as the novel ends on the maudlin but sweet phrase “love is the greatest gift of all.” The moral of the story is that good-hearted Mexican immigrants can provide one with more satisfaction than glittering Fabergé eggs can!

Originally published in Dawn, Books & Authors, November 1st, 2026

Led by Rauf Saami of the Saami Brothers — master practitioners of both qawwali and khayal traditions — and guided by his father, Ustad Naseeruddin Saami, the Infinite Raag project aims to document and preserve the family’s generational singing and study its “microtonal precision, intricate melodic movements, and sonic depth”, according to a press release issued on Monday.

The project, undertaken in collaboration with the Centre for Cultural Vibrancy — a non-profit organisation uplifting traditional heritage practitioners and promoting cross-cultural learning — is slated to receive funding and technical resources from the US-based Mozilla Foundation as part of their Artists Make Technology initiative. The Saami Family is one of 20 inaugural grantees awarded funding and technical resources to build technologies for use in their field.

The Infinite Raag project combines sound recordings and biometric data to create ethical, artist-owned tools to safeguard the family’s centuries-long living tradition of khayal.

Ustad Naseeruddin and his principal students’ multi-hour vocalisations will be captured by an artist-owned recording and analysis system in collaboration with the Center for Cultural Vibrancy.

Synchronised audio, biometric sensors, and a microtonal pitch tracker beyond the 12-tone system — Ustad Naseeruddin is credited with using a 49-note system — used in Western study of music will map moments of deep coherence and transcendence, guided by Artificial Intelligence tools.

Infinite Raag will also study the effects of the rigorous training and practice needed to perfect khayal on the bodies of its practitioners.

Commenting on the project, Rauf said his father had dedicated his life to the “pursuit of the truth of sur (melody)” and Infinite Raag was an attempt to preserve some of the knowledge Ustad Naseeruddin had gathered over his life for future generations to appreciate.

“Infinite Raag seeks to challenge extractive uses of AI and advance technology that supports cultural sovereignty, preservation, and exploration of transcendence,” Rauf said.

The Saamis are from the over 800-year-old Qawwal Bacha Gharana, said to have originally been founded by the Persian poet Amir Khusrow.

Rauf’s father is considered by many to be one of the few surviving old masters of his craft. He was recognised by the Aga Khan Music Awards last year for his work. At the time, Ustad Naseeruddin described his craft as “prayer through breath”.

Cover photo: Mozilla Foundation

Brand, 51, was on Thursday found guilty of rape and three sexual assaults against four women following a high-profile trial, in which he was cleared of two other alleged rapes and one count of attempted indecent assault against two other women.

He was remanded in custody and told by the judge he faced a “significant custodial term” at his sentencing on Monday.

The comedian and Hollywood actor, who became a household name in the UK in the 2000s, also faces further accusations of raping two more women, including a 16-year-old schoolgirl, which the Metropolitan Police is investigating.

“There’s two more cases we’re investigating at the moment,” Met police chief Mark Rowley told the BBC. “I clearly wouldn’t be surprised if many more came forward.”

After the verdicts, the Met paid tribute to the “extraordinary courage, resilience and determination of the women who came forward”.

“Brand used his influence, status and fame to exploit and sexually offend against women,” the Met’s Detective Superintendent Andy Furphy said in a statement Thursday.

Once one of the country’s most high-profile entertainers, Brand had a reputation for lewd humour and promiscuity, passing through major media organisations including the BBC, Channel 4 and MTV.

The companies have come under pressure in recent years – including in the wake of a 2023 joint investigation by Channel 4 and The Times into abuse allegations – for allowing a culture of impunity and even encouraging Brand’s behaviour.

On Thursday he was found guilty of sexual assaults against an MTV worker, a Channel 4 worker and a Capital Radio employee, as well as raping a 21-year-old fan.

After the verdicts, the BBC apologised again for the “culture and failings” when Brand was part of the organisation between 2006 and 2008.

He left amid controversy for sending a well-known actor sexually explicit messages about having slept with their granddaughter.

Jennie will sing ‘Someone to Hold’ for the Netflix animation Steps, a first for the artist, according to her agency OA Entertainment on Friday.

“I had so much fun working on a track for an animated film for the first time,” she told via the agency, “I loved the warm hearts and personalities of each character, and was happy to be a small part of their world.”

The film, which twists the plot of Cinderella, will unveil on Nov 20 and the ballad on Nov 6.

Jisoo, meanwhile, co-authored and sang ‘Sun Showers’ for The Angry Birds Movie 3, which will hit theatres in December.

“I’ve always loved how the films bring together such colourful characters, humour and heart. With ‘Sun Showers,’ I wanted to capture the movie’s playful and bright energy through a fun, feel-good song that makes people want to smile and dance along,” the artist said in an exclusive interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

This story was originally published on The Korea Herald, an ANN partner of Dawn

Well, maybe she was a time traveller from next year’s gala, because the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) announced the revised theme for the Costume Institute’s Spring 2027 exhibition and Mandava would have fit right in.

The new theme is extraORDINARY: Fashion and the Poetics of the Everyday.

The change in theme follows two months of uncertainty after the original was scrapped following intense backlash. The exhibition was initially supposed to chronicle the career of controversial British designer John Galliano.

The Galliano theme was not received well in the fashion community, largely due to the way the former Dior designer’s career collapsed following two incidents of racist and anti-semitic abuse in 2010 and 2011 that landed him in legal trouble.

A press release from the Met says, “The exhibition will explore how designers rework familiar garments, everyday objects, and commonplace materials through craft, construction, material experimentation, and conceptual wit.”

The exhibition, which will feature 230 pieces of clothing, will open with a gallery devoted to selected garments from Jun Takahashi’s Fall/Winter 2024–25 collection for Undercover titled Watching a Working Woman.

Two principal sections — ‘Familiar Forms’ and ‘Common Matter’ — will develop these ideas through focused comparisons of garment types, materials, and found objects.

‘Familiar forms’ will explore how designers reinvent common types of clothing, like t-shirts, jeans, trench coats and biker jackets. ‘Common Matter’ will look at the incorporation of everyday materials and household items into fashion, with three central groupings: paper, plastic and metal.

Speaking to journalists, the museum’s curator-in-charge Andrew Bolton said he didn’t have a plan B after the Galliano theme was scrapped. For the new theme, he said he “wanted it to be as challenging and as provocative and as beautiful as a John show would have been”.

The museum said details of the annual Met Gala, which is scheduled for May 3, will be revealed in time.

Other than eating halwa puri and taking in the majestic Lahore Fort, Walker teased a video on his social media accounts on Wednesday saying “more to come soon”, with ‘Alfaaz’, the hit song by Malik, Zain Ali and Zohaib Ali playing over it.

Malik on his Instagram stories shared a picture of Walker wearing a shawl with the word alfaaz on it in Urdu script. “There’s another surprise as well,” he wrote.

The ‘Faded’ producer also posted a story on his Instagram with the Pakistani singers with the caption, “BTW, it was a very productive day.”

Walker in a video shared by Giraffe Studios says: “I just got to Lahore and it’s beautiful here, and I’m about to go to the studio to work on some music.”

The video itself mentions “a dream collaboration”.

Could Walker’s visit have anything to do with the uber-popular song which is topping charts left and right?

On Monday, the track was placed at the top of the weekly music chart from Genius — a website which claims to be the world’s largest collection of song lyrics.

The song was joined on the list by works from popular Western artists like Tate McRae, Eminem and Radiohead.

‘Alfaaz’ also maintained a commanding position on Spotify’s charts, holding the top spot on daily charts from both Pakistan and India and placing 42nd on the platform’s Top 50 - Global list on Wednesday.

An earlier press release from Giraffe Studios — the studio behind the song — called its success “unprecedented” for a Pakistani song and called it an “example of how far a song can travel when it finds its audience”.

‘Alfaaz’ has also kept its position in second place on the UK’s Indian-dominated Official Asian Music Chart.

This is the studio’s second chart-topper after Sheheryar Rehan and Zoha Waseem’s ‘Majboor’ last year, which also topped Spotify’s Pakistan chart and peaked at second place on the India chart.

Giraffe said both songs were “different stories, shaped by different artists and trajectories, but together they reflect the possibilities that emerge when compelling music meets the right audience and continues to find new ones”.

The newly approved legislative framework repeals, nearly 150-year-old, the Dramatic Performances Act of 1876. Under the provisions of the 2026 bill, no theatrical or dramatic performance can take place at any public venue without an official licence issued by the information and culture secretary.

The organisers are legally barred from staging any play unless its script has been formally examined by a designated Script Review Committee and approved by the executive director of the Punjab Council of the Arts.

The legislation establishes a strict mandatory registration regime for all artists, directors, crew members, and makeup professionals, stipulating that no unregistered individual will be permitted to take part in theatrical productions.

To curb “vulgarity, defamation, and anti-state or sectarian content,” the framework empowers district monitoring teams and censoring committees to inspect full-dress rehearsals, oversee live or recorded electronic feeds, and mandates that organisers preserve unedited audio and video recordings of every show for at least 30 days.

Violations of the script guidelines, performance by unregistered personnel, or the use of premises for unauthorised activities will attract heavy administrative penalties, alongside penal action adjudicated summarily by a first class judicial magistrate.

The bill also introduces mandatory licencing fees, script scrutiny charges, and artist registration fees, while ensuring that affected parties retain a structured right of appeal through the administrative hierarchy up to the Punjab chief secretary.

Originally published in Dawn, November 5th, 2026

Work at the sites has been carried out as part of the Heritage and Urban Regeneration: Tourism Development in Lahore Fort and its Buffer Zone (HURL). Launched in 2022, it is a collaborative initiative between the Walled City of Lahore Authority, now Punjab Walled Cities and Heritage Areas Authority (PWCA) and Agence Française de Développement (AFD).

The project is being implemented by the Project Management Unit (PMU) of PWCA and Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan, says a press release.

The opening was attended by Juliette Le Pannerer, Project Team Manager of AFD, Urban Development and Ahsan Paracha, Urban Development Expert, and Tanveer Sahoo, Project Director of the Project Management Unit (PMU) of the Punjab Walled Cities and Heritage Areas Authority.

‘Labour of love that combines with creativity, passion’

The AKCS-P team was represented by CEO Tausif Khawaja, Director Conservation and Design Wajahat Ali, Shukurullah Baig, Head of Conservation and Planning, and Naheed Iftikhar, Manager Conservation and Urban Design. The opening of both sites was marked by a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Sharing his thoughts on the occasion, Director General of the Punjab Walled Cities and Heritage Areas Authority (PWCA) Najmus Saqib said: “The conservation of Akbari Gate and the Curator’s House forms part of PWCA’s broader efforts to improve public access to Lahore’s historic sites, attract more visitors, and create opportunities for sustainable economic activity.The reopening of the Akbari Gate will reconnect the Walled City to the Lahore Fort and repurposing the Curator’s House into an eatery will provide a new public attraction.”

The visiting team gathered outside the Curator’s House, the first monument to be inaugurated. The structure, built during the British era served as Fort’s guard room to fend off potential threats and was later used for administrative purposes. Up until recently, the Curator’s House was divided into two houses where local residents resided, separated through the centre of the structure; multiple walls had been added to the rooms.

Describing the philosophy behind the conservation of historic sites, CEO AKCS-P Tausif Khawaja said: “The conservation work carried out at the Lahore Fort by our technical teams is a labour of love that combines creativity, passion and hard work. “As an organisation we strive to preserve historic structures that are glorious symbols of our rich cultural heritage while engaging local communities and implementing our interventions in a way that benefits them. With the inauguration of these monuments, we hope to restore and revive historic symbols, offer improved cultural spaces to a larger number of people and in the process generate economic activity conducive to the people.”

Next, the visiting delegation proceeded to the Akbari Gate. One of the main entrances to the Fort, the Akbari Gate was cordoned off during the British rule. The conservation of the structure has now been completed and a ticketing booth will be added in the near future to allow it to serve as a fully furnished entry point for visitors, offering easy access to residents of the walled city once again.

The team also visited the Akbari Mahal, Kala Burj and British Barracks to review the progress of their conservation.

Originally published in Dawn, November 5th, 2026

During a visit to the Surtaal Music Academy in Lahore, Azhar in an Instagram post on Tuesday announced — while surrounded by the talented young musicians enrolled there — that they will be performing their first public concert by opening for him on tour.

The singer sang with the kids too, performing renditions of his songs ‘Khabbay Sajjay’ and ‘Jo Tu Na Mila’, with one of the young performers playing the harmonium as accompaniment.

Earlier, the students had extended an invitation to Azhar to visit their academy through a reel in which they performed ‘Meri Zindagi Hai Tu’ — his popular OST from the drama of the same name.

The singer is just one of a number of high-profile guests who have visited Surtaal in the last few days. Amar Khan stopped by around the same time as Azhar and got to sing some Punjabi songs with the kids, including the classic ‘Ajj Kala Jora Pa’, which she sang on the show Mitti De Baway.

Natasha Baig has also spent some time at Surtaal, singing along to qawwali from the legendary Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Norway’s William Gamborg visited too, and subsequently went viral for jamming along as the kids performed Hamza Malik and Zain Zohaib’s uber-popular song ‘Alfaaz’

The Asim Ali tour has stops scheduled in Faisalabad, Lahore and Islamabad on November 6, 7 and 8 before Azhar flies to the US to begin a series of shows abroad. He’ll be back in Pakistan in time for Christmas, when he has a show in Karachi.

According to practitioners who administer these so-called ‘skin whitening injections’, skin colour can lighten as a result of an antioxidant called glutathione, which is believed to suppress melanin production when administered in high doses.

Glutathione as a compound is neither new nor exotic. Your body makes it daily, for free, as part of its routine defence against cellular damage, and while a healthy body can replenish glutathione on its own, it’s  also found in foods such as asparagus, avocado, spinach and cucumbers.

Today, injectable glutathione is a big business globally.

Houston-based pharmacist Anum Shaikh, who has dispensed glutathione injections for patients needing to boost immunity and overall health, says that in the United States glutathione injections are used primarily for overall wellbeing rather than skin whitening. But in South Asia, Southeast Asia and most African countries, what began as supportive therapy in cancer and liver medicine has become one of the most popular ways to become a few shades paler.

In fact, while reporting this piece, Instagram showed me no less than 30 Pakistani clinics selling “gluta drips” with captions promising more energy, stronger immunity, and a detoxed liver. Strip away the vocabulary of self-care and what we are really being sold is the oldest offer in the Asian beauty economy: lighter skin.

According to Lahore-based dermatologist Dr Amna Ahmar, glutathione is thought to lighten skin by blocking tyrosinase, the enzyme that controls how much melanin (the pigment that gives skin its colour) your cells produce, and by nudging that production away from darker pigment towards a lighter pigment.

At a reputable clinic in Pakistan, a single session of intravenous glutathione will set you back around Rs25,000 — the monthly salary for many domestic workers. Patients typically commit to once or twice a week for 10 to 12 sessions followed by indefinite “maintenance” sessions because results are not permanent and fade within months.

“Someone who is committing to spending Rs80,000 a month needs to know that this isn’t something that’s going to transform them,” says Dr Ahmar.

“When a patient comes to me, before jumping to injections, I look for the real problem. For instance, if a patient has PCOS and insulin resistance causing acne or melasma, I treat that. Fix the dermatological issue first. If you have extra to spend after that, add the IV. It’s like sugar, the more you add the sweeter the benefits.”

But here’s the quiet absurdity at the heart of the whole business. People are paying, week after week, to inject a drug that not only lacks approval from any health authority in the world but has never been proven to lighten skin.

According to Houston-based dermatologist Dr Sana Zahiruddin, only a few studies suggest glutathione may produce a modest reduction in skin pigmentation in some people.

“These studies are small and their results are inconsistent,” cautions Dr Zahiruddin. “If someone does notice a difference, it is usually subtle and not everyone will respond.”

Interestingly, one of those studies is Pakistani.

Ten years ago, a team of Multan-based doctors tested glutathione on 25 women, injecting 1,200mg twice a week for six weeks and comparing them against 25 women given only saline. The results were sobering. Only about a third of the women’s skin lightened at all — statistically no better than the saline group — and even those results faded, with only one patient still showing any results six months later.

Most alarming was the harm, with every single woman in the glutathione group suffering side effects, including signs of liver damage. One woman went into anaphylactic shock, a severe and potentially fatal allergic reaction.

“The Pakistani study and the more recent studies do not provide convincing evidence that intravenous glutathione is an effective or safe skin lightening treatment. At best, these studies suggest that a minority of patients may experience a modest and temporary change. At the same time, they raise meaningful safety concerns,” says Dr Zahiruddin. “I would not recommend intravenous glutathione for cosmetic skin lightening based on the evidence currently available.”

Islamabad-based aesthetic physician Dr Taskeen Iqbal agrees.

“The truth is that the results from glutathione injections will be gradual and modest,” she says. “If you see a dramatic before and after photo, that is editing, not biology because skin cannot change that far or that drastically from a drip. But it gets marketed as lightening or whitening because that word sells.”

‘Brighter’ skin

The use of glutathione is regulated in the country by the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP), which has in at least one instance approved oral glutathione as a nutritional supplement and injectable glutathione to treat the side effects of chemotherapy.

“An aesthetics clinic providing glutathione drips is, in practice, answerable to almost no one,” warns Dr Iqbal. “In Pakistan, enforcement is thin on the ground, it is close to a wild west. And, in the US where a vial can be ordered after a 15-minute virtual consultation, what that tells me is that looseness is not a Pakistani failing alone. Even tightly regulated markets have wide gaps around this treatment. Until the rules catch up, the burden of safety falls unfairly on the patient to choose well.”

While Pakistani medical authorities have thus far been silent on the off-label use of glutathione injectables for skin lightening, governments elsewhere have been warning against them for years.

In the Philippines, where skin whitening injections have been wildly popular for many years, the dermatological society has repeatedly warned that there is no scientific proof that glutathione whitens skin. In 2024, the health secretary warned against the use of skin whitening injectables following the death of a 39-year-old woman from complications after using intravenous glutathione.

Similarly, the Saudi Food and Drug Authority has warned against unregistered skin-whitening injections that contain glutathione. In Malaysia, glutathione is named in the country’s Negative List of the Drug Registration Guidance Document and has not been approved for aesthetic use by its National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency. In Nigeria and Ghana, health ministries have issued warnings on the risks of glutathione, specifically flagging certain cancer and kidney disease risks.

In India, where the injections have surged in popularity, a doctor recently went viral when he accused clinics of false advertisements, claiming they posted dramatic before and after photos that are  “90 per cent lighting, filters and thora sa (a little) Photoshop”.

Then, there is South Africa, which has fought hard against skin whitening products in general. In 1975, the government banned mercury-laden cosmetics and, in the 1990s, South Africa became one of the first countries in the world to restrict the sale of skin-lightening creams containing harmful ingredients. A study published in the South African Medical Journal highlighted safety concerns surrounding the use of glutathione.

In the United States, as early as 1889, Black and eastern European women were using toxic skin whitening products in the hopes of accessing the cultural and economic privileges whiteness accrues.

More recently, in 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement forced a global racial reckoning resulting in skincare giants such as Nivea, Pond’s, Unilever and L’Oréal pledging to stop using words like “whitening” and “fairness” to market their products. That’s also how Fair & Lovely got its rebrand.

But because the market demand never went away, despite dropping “fair,” “white” and “light” from packaging labels, these brands still market the same product using softer descriptors like “glow,” “brighten” and “radiant”.

All this necessarily stokes a debate on the toxic yet completely accepted culture of colourism amongst South Asians.

Whereas racism sorts people by race, colourism sorts people by the shade of their skin. And where racism manifests as prejudicial behaviour aimed towards another community, colourism turns inward, with prejudicial behaviour towards one’s own community.

If you are a brown girl who is a shade darker than white paint, you’ve experienced colourism in some form — from ‘innocent’ family remarks to the not-so-innocent, unsolicited comments by random aunties.

Colourism is the reason a darker-skinned woman and a lighter-skinned woman from the same community or with the same credentials or even from the same family can be treated differently over nothing more than the depth of their skin tone. Colourism is the reason Pakistan’s TV and film industry often casts light-skinned actors as the good, more desirable lead character while their browner counterparts are the villains or sidekicks.

Indeed, every expert I interviewed for this story had, frankly, heartbreaking examples of patients — from housewives to PhD candidates — wanting to whiten their skin, with some hoping it would lead to better rishtas, others readying themselves for their wedding and some hoping to improve their economic prospects.

And, while the demand for glutathione injections skews heavily female, dermatologists — including the ones interviewed for this story — report an increasing number of men pursuing the treatment, although women remain the primary market for skin-whitening services.

According to these physicians, some patients will be direct about what they want, even bringing in photos of Pakistani celebrities they suspect have used whitening injections. Others will skirt around the issue, using the language of self-care and emphasising they don’t want to “whiten” per se and are instead just there to enhance their “glow”.

But, as Dr Zahiruddin points out, unlike in the cosmetic world, in the field of dermatology ‘brightening’ and ‘lightening’ are two very different things.

“Brightening, in dermatology, usually means improving an uneven skin tone, fading dark spots, to give the skin a healthier, more even appearance. But in the cosmetic marketplace, the terms brightening, glowing, and radiance are often used to market products that are really intended to lighten a person’s overall skin tone,” she points out.

Really, no matter how we dress up the demand, one thing is for sure: our colonial hangover has left us irredeemably convinced that brown skin is a problem to correct. Indeed, this article is not really a story about a skin-whitening injection. It is a story about a sickness spread by our former colonial masters, then maintained by a multibillion-dollar industry that has taught generations of brown women that our worth increases the closer we are to being ‘white’.

The belief is old — injectable glutathione is just the latest delivery system.

Art by Mohsin Alam

The song reached another milestone on Monday, as Genius — a website which lays claim to being the world’s largest collection of song lyrics — announced ‘Alfaaz’ had topped its weekly charts.

The song has had a steady performance on the Genius weekly chart, first appearing at number six on October 5, then spending two weeks in fifth place. This week’s chart saw the song climb two places from number three to the top spot.

Other songs on the list included ‘Housewife’ by Tate McRae, ‘Creep’ by Radiohead and Eminem’s 14-year-old rap classic ‘Lose Yourself ’, which placed third, fourth and fifth, respectively.

Genius is not the only place ‘Alfaaz’ is topping charts; the song remained the most popular song in Pakistan and India on Tuesday, a position it also held last week.

Globally, it remains in the daily Top 50 charts, having climbed one space to number 38 from the last time we reported its position on Thursday.

At the time, a press release from the studio behind the song — Giraffe — called its success “unprecedented” for a Pakistani song and called it an “example of how far a song can travel when it finds its audience”.

‘Alfaaz’ has also maintained its position at second place on the UK’s Indian-dominated Official Asian Music Chart.

This is the studio’s second chart-topper after Sheheryar Rehan and Zoha Waseem’s ‘Majboor’ last year, which also topped Spotify’s Pakistan chart and peaked at second place on the India chart.

Giraffe said both songs were “different stories, shaped by different artists and trajectories, but together they reflect the possibilities that emerge when compelling music meets the right audience and continues to find new ones”.

Cover photo: Spotify

According to the dictionary, mogging is a compliment meaning “the act of outshining or outperforming someone or something”, with the word spreading on social media in the past year.

It is believed to be rooted in the slang acronym, ‘AMOG’ (alpha male of the group), which was associated with bodybuilding culture before being adopted by manosphere and incel spaces that often promote misogynist beliefs.

But mogging has in recent months entered mainstream conversation, used by Gen Alpha and Gen Z to playfully describe someone looking more attractive, fashionable or cooler than another.

The word saw a 210 per cent increase in usage this year, the dictionary said in a press release.

“It’s a great example of how Gen Z and Gen Alpha have adopted a word and turned it into humorous slang, making the language their own and ‘mogging’ the rest of us!” managing director Alex Beecroft said in a statement.

Every year, Collins lexicographers create a list of words that “reflect our ever evolving language and the preoccupations of those who use it”.

Others in the running were ‘carspreading’ — manufacturers making vehicles that are bigger with every new model — and ‘ghost jobs’, postings advertised without any intention to hire someone, driven by frustrations with the job market.

Also in contention was ‘Manchesterism’, the political philosophy associated with Andy Burnham, who became the United Kingdom’s prime minister this summer after a dramatic takeover, and ‘fricy’, food that is both fruity and spicy.

There was also ‘firewave’, referring to multiple wildfires that spread over a short period of time, and ‘bixie’, which is a haircut between a bob and a pixie cut.

“Look across the shortlist and the pattern is hard to miss,” a blog on the Collins website said. “In 2026, everything is surpassing something else: bigger cars (carspreading), hotter summers (firewave, hydration break), a politician who outmanoeuvred a prime minister (Manchesterism).”

Last year’s word of the year was “vibe coding”, which meant the use of Artificial Intelligence to tell a machine what you want instead of coding it yourself.

Photo courtesy Collins English Dictionary blog

In fact, it was so well-liked that, since then, the structure has taken on a life of its own. Last year, for Qatar’s first participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale, ‘Community Centre’ was featured as an installation at the historic Giardini della Biennale to mark the site for the permanent Qatar Pavilion. Clearly, Lari has found a host of admirers in Qatar, but so too have other architects and urban designers from Pakistan.

This is evidenced by Beyti Beytak: My Home Is Your Home, an exhibition in Doha that opened its doors to the public on October 26, 2026, and is being presented as part of Qatar Creates’ Fall/Winter 2026-27 programming.

Bringing together architects, designers and practitioners from across the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA), the exhibition organised by Qatar’s Art Mill Museum explores the relationship between architecture, culture, belonging and collective responsibility.

First showcased at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, Beyti Beytak has now arrived in Doha in an expanded form. Housed within the historic Fahad bin Ali Palace, the show presents architectural models, drawings, archival material and installations across various thematic sections.

The show asks: what makes a building meaningful? Is it the ingenuity of its design, the materials from which it is constructed or the lives it accommodates?

Among its participants are two of Pakistan’s most consequential architects — Lari and Nayyar Ali Dada — whose respective practices offer distinct but complementary perspectives on the social possibilities of architecture.

For Lari, architecture has increasingly become an instrument of humanitarian intervention, environmental sustainability and community empowerment.

Nayyar Ali Dada, meanwhile, has developed a practice concerned with the relationship between contemporary architectural expression, civic institutions and preserving a city’s inherent cultural fabric.

Lari’s contribution for Beyti Beytak provides an opportunity to trace the evolution of a practice that has undergone a considerable transformation over several decades. The exhibition presents her ‘Angoori Bagh Peoples Housing Programme’, developed in Lahore in 1975. The project offers an early point of reference for understanding her engagement with housing, and the relationship between domestic architecture and the needs of urban communities.

Her subsequent work has increasingly focused on sustainable construction and disaster resilience through what she calls “a process of unlearning.”

Following the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, Lari chose to move away from conventional, carbon-intensive building methods towards locally sourced materials and community-led and women-centred construction. Working through the Heritage Foundation of Pakistan, which she co-founded, Lari has advocated the use of bamboo, lime and mud, combining traditional building knowledge with contemporary responses to environmental vulnerability.

The exhibition also documents Lari’s ‘Zero Carbon Cultural Centre’, completed in 2017 at the Makli Necropolis in Sindh. Constructed from prefabricated structural bamboo panels, the warehouse-like building forms part of a larger zero-carbon campus near the Unesco-listed archaeological site. Beyond its function as a venue for conferences and gatherings, the centre operates as a training facility where artisans, students and community members learn sustainable construction techniques.

Aurélien Lemonier, the curator of Beyti Beytak, is well-versed in Pakistani art and architecture, especially given his work on MANZAR in 2024. Lemonier, who is enthusiastic about Lari’s practice, says: “One of the leading figures who exemplifies the questions this exhibition is grappling with is Yasmeen Lari. She is, for me, and for many, many, many people, a strong example of a possible future of architecture.”

Lari’s approach, as demonstrated by the archival material on display at Beyti Beytak, challenges conventional hierarchies between architect and builder, professional expertise and inherited knowledge. As Lemonier puts it, “The methodology she [Lari] employs is absolutely an example of how to build a relationship with the community. Through such an approach, you provide the community with a kind of knowledge of construction and craft. Hence, suddenly they have another vision of themselves and they become more autonomous.”

It is also heartening to see the approach that Lari exemplifies echoed in the works of younger architects in the MENASA region. A new work by Iraqi architect Ola Znad, on display at Beyti Beytak, draws on traditional, sustainable reed construction to honour the women in southern Iraq’s marshlands who have carried knowledge of weaving and dyeing across generations. Znad’s dense reed structure would seem at home standing along Lari’s Community Centre.

Nayyar Ali Dada’s contribution approaches the relationship between architecture and society from a slightly different direction. A wooden architectural model of Lahore’s Alhamra Arts Council housed at the exhibition showcases how its architect envisioned the building as a setting for artistic expression and public engagement, demonstrating how architecture can become an extension of a city’s cultural life.

“Nayyar Ali Dada,” according to Lemonier, “Has this great talent to be local and international at the same time. As a Pakistan architect, his architecture is very rooted in that tradition, particularly with his usage of brick. But it is also, simultaneously, universal.”

This approach to institutional architecture is also evident in his son, Raza Ali Dada’s work, which is also part of the Beyti Beytak catalogue. The British Council Library, completed in 2016 under Raza Ali Dada’s watchful eye, replaced an earlier non-functional building while incorporating materials from the former structure into its contemporary design. Drawing on the surrounding historic fabric, the library combines exposed concrete, brick surfaces and a restrained material palette. Across these works, the recurring concern is the capacity of architecture to accommodate public activity and strengthen the civic life of the community.

Raza Ali Dada’s words reinforce this sentiment: “In a region whose historic traditions are inherently sustainable, empathetic and attuned to climate, we have a responsibility to uphold these values and extend them logically into the future. For me, this means shaping the built environment that cares for people and place with equal intention.”

Another Pakistani whose work has drawn interest and inclusion from the Art Mill Museum is Karachi-based architectural designer and urban researcher Namra Khalid, whose ongoing Karachi Cartography project investigates the city’s water systems, drainage data, historical landscapes and climate vulnerabilities through maps and community-sourced archives.

Rooted in the reality of the climate catastrophes that routinely plague the region, Khalid argues, “In a submerging Karachi, historical cartography and hydrology are not archival. They are infrastructural: foundations for sustainable solutions, climate resilience and survival. And so is true for a submerging Pakistan and for a submerging South Asia.”

Ultimately, Beyti Beytak offers a compelling perspective on architecture in the MENASA region, and particularly in Pakistan, proposing that architecture should be understood through the communities it serves, the knowledge it preserves and the relationships it makes possible.

Beyti Beytak: My Home Is Your Home is on display at Fahad bin Ali Palace, Doha, from October 26, 2026-May 29, 2027

Cover image: Yasmeen Lari’s Community Centre was showcased at the MANZAR exhibition in Qatar as well as the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale. — Photo courtesy Qatar Museums

The undertaking came on Monday, November 2, after the court sought clarity on his position during the hearing of his petition challenging the Foreigners Regional Registration Office’s (FRRO) Leave India Notice.

What Imran Khan told the Bombay High Court

In his written statement, Imran Khan maintained that he had visited the protest site near August Kranti Maidan in South Mumbai only to understand why people’s movement was being restricted and their voices suppressed. He said he had no intention of making demands or influencing the protest.

“I had no intent, as can be seen from my limited remarks to the media on October 10, 2026. I have never made any demands and have categorically stated that I am no one to make any demands,” the actor stated.

However, he agreed to stay away from such demonstrations in the future.

“I volunteer to provide an undertaking to the Union of India that I shall not participate in any protests in the future, nor shall I directly or indirectly influence or instigate others to participate in any such protest,” he added.

The actor also expressed hope that his undertaking would bring an end to the controversy surrounding his alleged participation and the action taken against him afterwards.

HC questions his participation in SIR protest

During the hearing, a bench comprising Chief Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Advait M Sethna questioned why Imran Khan had joined a demonstration concerning the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) when he was not directly affected by the exercise.

The court observed that, as an OCI cardholder, the actor could not claim the same rights as Indian citizens.

The bench remarked that he was not “remotely affected by the Special Intensive Revision (SIR)” and said he had “no such right to venture into such activities”.

The court also made it clear that OCI cardholders cannot be “put at par with Indian citizens” when it comes to constitutional rights available to citizens.

After taking his undertaking on record, however, the High Court suggested that the authorities show a “big heart” and consider taking a “lenient approach” towards him.

Actor cites 42 years in India, family and professional ties

In his undertaking, Imran Khan also highlighted his long association with India and said he had no criminal record.

He stated that during his 42 years in the country, he had “strictly adhered to the law and honoured the laws of this great nation in their letter and spirit”.

The actor further said that he had immense respect for India and its Constitution despite holding OCI status.

“Being an OCI holder, I have the utmost love and respect for this great nation and its Constitution,” he stated, adding that he had contributed to the country through tax payments and by creating employment opportunities.

Imran Khan also pointed to his personal and professional connections. He said he had married in India and had a daughter from the marriage. His extended family, he added, was Indian by birth.

He also referred to his family’s contribution to the film industry, stating that his life, profession and affiliations were all connected to India.

The Bombay High Court has kept the FRRO’s Leave India Notice in abeyance until December 7.

The court also observed that, during this period, Imran Khan was expected to remain in India as a “law-abiding person” and refrain from associating with or participating in activities and protests.

This story was originally published on The Statesman, an ANN partner of Dawn

The rapper talked about the event’s success in a post on his Instagram account, saying he was “overwhelmed with gratitude and awe” for everyone who was a part of the last show in London, from the musicians to the speakers to the members of the audience.

Macklemore said the tour was an “affirmation” that when people come together to stand for the freedom of others, “something profound happens”. He said the crowd and the performers were equal parts of that.

“We live in an era where advocating for Palestinian life and freedom is controversial. Where saying that Palestine should be free, that Palestinians deserve the same dignity, safety and rights as everyone else, can come at a cost,” Macklemore said.

He said when people stop thinking about those costs and join hands for liberation, “Love is found.” He said he felt that love in London on Friday and he can still feel it.

Talking about his experience organising the tour, the rapper said he had spent “five of the most intense weeks, reaching out to artists, organising, dealing with logistics and constant meetings,” but now felt like he could take a breath.

He acknowledged there was still a long way to go, but thanked everyone who had come along so far. “I feel honoured to have shared that experience with you all,” he said.

The sold-out show at London’s Wembley Stadium followed similarly popular nights in Paris and Dublin, where fans decked out in keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags were seen at the venue.

The proceeds from the shows went to organisations working to support Palestinians through humanitarian relief, medical care, education, advocacy and community initiatives.

Musicians performing at the event included Paloma Faith, Vic Mensa and Nemahsis, while climate activist Greta Thunberg and actors Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon and Javier Bardem addressed the crowd of over 12,500.

The tour materialised as a response to Macklemore being booted off singer Ed Sheeran’s tour of the Americas after he made a pro-Palestine speech during an appearance in New York.

The remarks drew criticism from certain pro-Israel venue owners who threatened to cancel Sheeran’s shows if Macklemore were to perform with him.

The rapper is an outspoken voice for Palestine, often using his platform to highlight Israeli crimes, especially in the aftermath of the country’s brutal invasion of Gaza in 2023.

In 2024, he wrote a song called ‘Hind’s Hall’, celebrating student protesters at Columbia University in the US who took over and renamed one of the campus halls of residence after six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Now, five years into her acting career, she says social media is a boon for the entertainment industry because it brings forward young talent — like Dananeer Mobeen, who debuted alongside Ali in the drama Sinf-e-Ahan.

She spoke to Hasan Chaudhary on his show Buzz about how, with some people, the lines between influencer and actor “intermingle” if the person has talent.

“The biggest example I have… and I am so glad that social media brought her here, is Dananeer, right? Dananeer is very talented,” she said.

Ali said that if social media weren’t there “kids like us would have a hard time navigating [the industry] and getting where we are”. She said people who enter the television space get criticised if they can’t act and don’t belong where they are.

When Chaudhry brought up Romaisa Khan, another social media star who went into dramas, Ali said she was a “beautiful actor” and had an extensive range. “Her eyes, her… I don’t know, man. Social media has given us [stars like] them too,” she said.

Ali said there was nepotism in the industry, but that could only get someone so far. “You’ll get two projects, at max, maybe three, that too by talking to as many people. Then you’ll be gone.”

She also said that the industry was in need of fresh faces: “There are some actors you see on your screen 24/7. So, even if they are good, you’re still seeing them all the time.”

Earlier in the programme, Ali’s Izzat co-star Atabik Mohsin said the industry suffered from an “accessibility problem” where new entrants didn’t know where to go and what to do. “For example, I have no one in the industry, [so I didn’t know] where to go for auditions and whom to meet.”

Mohsin did, however, say that there was hope for those who really wanted to get in. “There is enough space in the industry that you can get work, just keep at it,” he advised young actors.

A decree from Judge Zahid Bashir of the Family Court in Lahore dated October 29 ruled in favour of the dissolution as requested by Mahnaz.

She filed for khula on June 22, claiming that she and her daughters had suffered “extreme mental torment” for two decades and that she was “singlehandedly incurring all household expenses” due to the lack of financial support from her husband.

The suit said Mahnaz and her family members had made “numerous attempts to seek reform in [Moammar’s] behaviour”, but the actor “refused to seek treatment for his addiction or cease his violent outbursts”.

Mahnaz’s plea for khula cited Moammar’s physical and mental abuse of his wife and daughters as grounds for the dissolution. One of their daughters was listed as a witness by Mahnaz.

Earlier, both parties had been called for mediation in an attempt to resolve the matter through Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). A letter from the ADR Centre III in Lahore said Moammar appeared for mediation, whereas Mahnaz refused, leading to the matter being sent back to the court.

In an Instagram post on Friday, BDS said it was still encouraging a boycott of Disney products after Marvel chose to revive the pro-Israel comic book character Sabra in Captain America: Brave New World.

The movement called the character “racist” and “anti-Palestinian”, noting that the original version from 1980s comic books was an agent of the Mossad and that “Sabra has long glorified settler-colonial violence against Palestinians”.

The post from BDS also mentioned how the actor who played Sabra in the movie, Shira Haas, was not only Israeli, but also a former member of the Israeli military. In fact, Haas was exempted from mandatory military service on medical grounds, but chose to enlist in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) anyway.

The movement said Disney had suspended its operations in Russia when the country invaded neighbouring Ukraine in light of the “humanitarian crisis”, but continued to run a subsidiary and two TV channels in Israel three years after the country launched its brutal invasion of Palestine — which experts around the world have concluded is a genocide.

The post said the boycott call against Captain America: Brave New World and Snow White — which starred Israeli cultural ambassador Gal Gadot — led to both films being commercially unsuccessful and proved that BDS’ strategy of economic pressure can yield results.

The movement called for followers to stop buying Marvel merchandise and cancel their Disney+ subscriptions until Disney drops Sabra from its line-up of heroes.

This follows another boycott call from pro-Palestine activists against Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which was produced by former IDF member Avi Arad.

A Lebanese organisation aimed at placing economic pressure on Israel termed financially supporting projects associated with pro-Israel people — like Arad — as amounting to “cultural normalisation” and urged supporters not to pay to watch the movie.

The report looks at the so-called manosphere, which it defines as the collection of online communities united by shared beliefs about “masculinity, misogyny, and male victimisation”.

It details the health impacts of the manosphere – which blames feminism for disadvantaging men and a masculinity crisis – including on men’s mental health and violence against women.

It also says the movement “delegitimises” men and boys seeking help.

“By reframing the manosphere as a public health issue rather than just a regulatory issue, we open up a number of additional policy levers that public health approaches can provide,” author Sarah J Hawkes told BBC Radio 4.

The University College London global public health professor called for a coordinated government response to the crisis, including better access to skills and jobs as well as to mental health services.

She also pointed out that people make “a lot of money” through such messaging, including by encouraging boys and men to invest in financial schemes and buy unregulated supplements and hormones.

Co-author Kent Buse, health policy professor at Monash University Malaysia, said the manosphere thrived on online platforms deploying a similar playbook to the tobacco industry: “blame the individual, and call regulation an attack on freedom.”

“Boys and men are not the problem,” said Buse. “The problem is the conditions that leave them isolated and without a secure future, and the companies that profit from their anger and insecurity.”

And all that was achieved without Batman.

Directed by James Watkins, Clayface follows Matt Hagen, portrayed well by Tom Rhys Harries, a rising actor who finds himself horrifically attacked and disfigured. Hagen is left to grapple with not just his physical trauma, but also the loss of his identity and livelihood, for there is perhaps no industry more intimately familiar with the commercialisation of the human face. For an actor, such as our protagonist, there is no currency more valuable to him, nor any avenue with which to fulfil his dreams of cinema and acting glory, than that of his face. Thus, when his very means of self and livelihood are gruesomely taken away, he is willing to go to any means necessary to reclaim it, and enact revenge on those that inflicted this cruelty upon him in the first place.

Without giving too much away, it is a grotesque solution that seems perfectly aligned with the body horror of the whole film. However, the film’s central focus isn’t unfamiliar; it’s much like 2024’s horror darling The Substance. The similarities are palpable between the two protagonists who are abused by the corruption of Hollywood and turn to nefarious substances that “fix” their appearance to fit the industry standard, chipping away at their humanity in exchange.

In Clayface’s case, Hagen is an actor whose entire profession requires him to be looked at, the disfigurement a physical toll as well as a complete destruction of life and identity. His tragedy lies in the fact that recovering his appearance is synonymous with recovering his own selfhood, and while he is far from perfect, he is an extremely pitiable person.

Thus, the body horror has a unique layer of intentionality behind it where Hagen’s consistently horrifying transformations allow for dissection of character as well as spectacle. To lose what is one’s entire life, and then lose the humanity you had left trying to reclaim said life through reclaiming appearance is a difficult matter to explore. Even more difficult, perhaps, is the constant push and pull with whether the monster is Hagen’s own self, or the substance that corrupts him, body and soul.

Harries carries the burden of this disturbingly difficult portrayal, and yet he manages to suit the role to the point where I could not imagine any other performer successfully taking on the character, the dissolution of Hagen’s psyche and identity carried in a way impactful enough to leave a mark.

However, Clayface is a film that picks and chooses what to prioritise. The character study and dissection of Hagen, itself central to the film’s identity as a body horror piece, is quite well done and a surprisingly brave choice for what could have been a more generic bet in the superhero genre. Unfortunately, other story beats range from generic to disrespectfully rushed, particularly with the film’s first half, where the set-up seems to be rushed through in an attempt to get to “the good stuff”. And as much as Naiomi Ackie is a standout actor, her character stands as understandably vital, but underdone.

All in all, however, Clayface is a worthy watch. It is at its most compelling when it fully leans into the themes and genres it actually intends to explore. Sometimes, the grotesque is simply what a man looks like when pushed to his absolute limits.

Its thematic ambitions occasionally reach beyond the quality of the narrative, with a specific court case plot point I will not get into (but did not enjoy — seriously, it took up precious screen time and only added more plot holes as the film went on) but there is something worthwhile in a superhero studio choosing to make a monster’s origin story an examination of identity, disposability, and the ups and downs of commercialising being seen.

Any fan of horror or any non-squeamish fan of DC should give it a watch.

Brand’s trial in London on seven counts of rape, sexual assault and attempted indecent assault is now in the final stages, with the jury likely to retire to consider a verdict on Tuesday.

The London court has heard details from six women of alleged offences, including a rape between 1999 and 2009 when Brand rose to fame as a stand-up comedian and television presenter.

If found guilty, the 51-year-old could face up to life in prison. Brand has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, saying that although he used to be promiscuous, he always had consensual sex. His wife Laura Gallacher, who has attended most hearings, sounded confident and calm, as she was questioned by Brand’s lawyer and the prosecution as a character witness.

“Russell, my husband, is caring, he is kind, he is a wonderful father to our children. He is an amazing, attentive husband,” the 39-year-old said, watched by Brand from the dock. Gallacher and Brand married in 2017 and have three children.

Originally published in Dawn, October 30th, 2026

That’s right, Netflix is working on a live-action series based on PUBG — and no, we have no idea how a game without even the semblance of a plot can be made into a TV show.

Donald Glover, the actor known for his work on Community, 30 Rock and the satirical 2016 rap song ‘This Is America’, is reported as the star of the show. His brother Stephen will write and executive produce.

PUBG, which was first released in 2017, is an online, multiplayer game where each match consists of 100 players being dropped into an arena and having to fight each other in a battle royale format — the last player standing is declared the winner.

The game enjoys widespread popularity in Pakistan and has been brought under the microscope more than once over its overtly violent gameplay and the negative effects that may have on its — mostly young — audience.

The game made headlines again last month after Pakistan’s five-man national team won a bronze medal in e-sports at the Asian Games in Japan.

Should the project go ahead, it would be part of a line of video game adaptations in the works at Netflix, including a show based on the Assassin’s Creed franchise and a movie based on Gears of War.

The streaming platform is said to be working on animated series based on Minecraft and Clash of Clans, while cartoons based on Cyberpunk and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell are already part of its catalogue.

Conceived by a creative team including Arafat Mazhar, a story of rebellion is told through a superb art style and unique aesthetic dubbed “sufi-punk” — according to a press release, it’s “speculative storytelling anchored in the spiritual, cultural, political and technological inheritances of South Asia and Islam”.

It’s also a vision of what might happen if we carry our current social status quo into an uncertain future. On the page this manifests as a mix of futuristic architecture and fashion with the traditional, merging the familiar with something that has yet to exist. It’s like they took Cyberpunk 2077 and set it in Pakistan.

I absolutely love this art style and can’t recall a similar setting off the top of my head, let alone one that holds a certain degree of authenticity. Neon signs are in Urdu, skyscrapers are domed and buildings appear to have been designed with geometric shapes, much like Islamic architecture. It’s a pretty unique setting when put alongside other cyberpunk settings like Blade Runner.

On the surface, the one-issue comic looks superb. The book itself is of a very premium quality; hardbound and with glossy pages similar to something you’d find in a graphic novel from Marvel or DC. I’m not sure whether this is exclusive to the deluxe edition, which was sent to us by the team at Puffball Studios, but I’m impressed nonetheless.

The Rs3,500 76-page deluxe edition also contains interviews with the creative team and, my personal favourite, concept art showing how sufi-punk was brought to life. The standard version has 34 pages and costs Rs1,800.

In terms of its story, ABIDA presents us with a future where society worships what I can only assume is an AI known as Al-Mutahir, which has “prophecies” in the form of digital files stored within people known as recordkeepers. These people literally have entire parts of their body converted to store data and are considered holy figures.

The titular protagonist and her crew are out to steal a file from one of these recordkeepers in a really well-conceived data heist sequence, which, again, reminded me of Cyberpunk 2077 and also offered a novel way of decrypting the data. I won’t spoil it since it’s worth the read, but it sets up the protagonist’s main arc in the rest of the series.

However, there are some panels where characters’ proportions seem off. It looks like Mr Fantastic, with stretched arms that look comically massive compared to the rest of the body. It’s only visible in a few instances, but it stood out for the wrong reasons.

So far, this project is something genuinely interesting and I’m looking forward to reading the rest, ideally in a single volume. The world is what genuinely fascinated me here, with its aesthetic and lore, and I really want to see more world building in ABIDA.

I’d also love to see more sufi-punk or even “desi-punk” (that’s a thing, right?) stories in general across all mediums. As a gamer, an adventure in a setting like this would be really cool, but also unique since it’s a largely under-acknowledged setting.

ABIDA was created and written by Mazhar, illustrated by Arsalan Rafique, coloured by Samra Shireen and lettered by Breeha Tarar. It marks Puffball Studios’ branching out to create Puffball Comics. Puffball Studios has previously worked on several short films, including Sheher-e-Tabassum and Swipe.

The court also banned Panahi from leaving the country for two years and from any social media activity, the report said.

Panahi’s lawyer, Mostafa Nili, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Panahi, whose film It Was Just an Accident won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes film festival, has been arrested several times in the past for his filmmaking.

Despite having been sentenced to a one-year prison sentence in absentia in 2025 for propaganda activities against the system, Panahi returned to the country in March.